In Memory Of Doc
by Quazie89
Summary: This story explores how Lightning and Sally could've named their son, one of my wonderful Cars friends' OC, MissStef94, after Doc. The characters are humanized in this story.


Hello, everybody! This is a story I wrote for MissStef94, just for being a very good friend. It takes place after the third movie, and Sally is heavily pregnant with her and Lightning's child. Lightning and Sally are both humanized in this story, which is pretty much how I think they could've named their son, Stef's OC and Lightning and Sally's son in her stories, after Doc. I hope everybody enjoy's the story!

"AH!"

Lightning woke up to the sound of Sally screaming, and turned over on his side, fearing something bad had happened to her and the baby. "Sally, what's wrong?" he asked, and cupped her chin in his hand, gently turning her head around toward his so he could see her face, knowing she was in a lot of pain.

"Ugh," Sally groaned, gasping for breath, and clutched her heaving stomach, feeling a violent contraption rippling across it. "I'm having another contraption."

Lightning sat up, beginning to panic, while at the same time telling himself not to. "Is it bad?" he asked, a flicker of concern crossing his face.

Sally gulped, and shook her head, taking a couple of deep, shuddering breaths. "It's not as bad as some of the ones I've had, but it's not too great, either."

Lightning placed a comforting hand over the swollen bulge of Sally's belly, and began to rub the rapidly rising and falling mound, hoping to smooth the baby and calm it down. "I know, just take a couple of deep breaths and calm down," he said, smiling a little when he felt the baby stir beneath his hand, knowing this child was going to be a wild one, just like it's daddy.

"T-T-That's easy for you to say," Sally said, wheezing and gasping, and clutched his hand in a tight, death-like grip, almost crushing all the muscles inside of it. "You're not the one who has to go through this."

"Do you want me to take you to the hospital?" Lightning asked, once he had pried his hand out of Sally's and had worked some feeling back into it, growing more and more concerned for her with each passing minute.

Sally shook her head. "No," she said, letting her head fall back against the pillow, and sighed. "It's not time." She shook her head, staring up at the ceiling, and closed her eyes. "I'll know when it's time, but today's not the day, and it'll pass."

"All right," Lightning said, and decided to let it go, seeing Sally was right. The baby wasn't moving as much as it had been before.

Sally moaned. "Now I got to go to the bathroom," she said, struggling to rise, and pressed her hand down on the mattress, pushing herself up. "I might need some help, I admit, but I think the contraptions have stopped for now."

"That's good," Lightning said, sliding to the edge of the bed, and got to his feet. "Here, I'll help you." His injures from the near fatal crash that had almost ended his life and career a couple of years ago were still sore and bothered him, causing him to limp when he walked, no, more like staggered, over to the other side of the mattress and took Sally's hand in his, seeing she was having trouble getting around, and led her to the bathroom, guiding her the rest of the way there.

Once they had gotten to the bathroom, Sally stopped and turned around, giving Lightning a grateful look. "Thank you," she said, waddling into the bathroom, and Lightning winced when he heard harsh, retching, gagging sounds coming from inside the bathroom seconds later and wanted to run into another room to go hide, but told himself to stay there for Sally's sake, knowing she would want him to be there when she came back out.

Sally came out a few minutes later, looking disheveled, her usually kept, pentup hair mussed and sticking up in every direction. "Did you hear all of that?" she asked, wincing, and held her head down in shame, staring down at her feet.

Lightning nodded, his expression grave and solemn. "I'm afraid so," he said, and walked up to her, wrapping his arms around her bulging belly, planting a lenghty, romantic kiss on her mouth. "I still love you, though."

"Oh, thank you, Stickers," Sally said, kissing him back on the mouth, and grasped his hand, gazing up at him with pure love and adoration in her eyes. "I love you so much." She sighed, and stared down at her belly, which extended well past her feet now, since she was already six months along in her pregnancy. "I just feel so fat and ugly with...this." She indicated her belly by stretching her hands over it, struggling to find the right word for it, a look of disgust crossing her otherwise beautiful face.

Lightning beamed down at her. "I don't. I think it looks natural on you," he said, and started to lead her back to the bed, coming to a stop when they walked by a picture of Doc hanging on a wall. A fan of the Hudson Hornet had taken it when Doc had volunteered to be Lightning's pit crew chief and had given it to Lightning after he had died, knowing how much the old racer had meant to him. Lightning couldn't remember the fan's name, but he had done a lot to track Lightning down, even coming all the way to Radiator Springs from who knew were. Lightning never found out, and he hadn't asked, thinking it would've been rude and had been none of his business, anyway. He was just thankful the fan had thought of him enough to drive that far in order to give him the picture. "I like that picture of Doc." He stood behind Sally and draped his hands over her shoulders, giving them a comforting squeeze. "It's a good picture of him."

"Yeah, I really love it, too, " Sally said, looking up at the picture with fondness. "It's one of my favorites of him."

Lightning stared up at the picture of Doc, rocking back and forth on the heels of his feet, and wrapped his arms around Sally's rapidly expanding belly. "He actually looked happy in that picture," he said, a sad, distant look of longing in his wistful eyes. "It's nice to see him like that, because it seemed like he was hardly ever happy when I was around."

Sally gave him a reassuring smile. "He loved you," she said, planting a light, yet heartfelt kiss on his cheek. "I could tell." She laid her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes, suddenly feeling very tired. "Doc was just so rough, rugged, and manly he just didn't know how to show it." She chuckled.

"Yeah, you're probably right," Lightning said, resting his head on the top of Sally's, realisation dawning in his wide, blue eyes as a sudden, unexpected, but wonderful idea came to him. "Sally, I got it!" Unable to keep the excitement out of his voice, he quickly lifted his head off of Sally's shoulder, and peered into her face. "I know what we can name him."

They had found out the baby was a boy a couple of months ago when they took Sally to have an ultrasound done. They were both thrilled by the news of, course, Lightning maybe more so than Sally. He had always wanted a baby boy he could train one day to be a racer in the hopes he would follow in his father's footsteps and become a Piston Cup Champion. Somebody had to carry on the McQueen legacy, after all, and make sure the name lived on in racing, but he would've loved his baby girl just as much. Girls could race, too. Cruz had proven this, but with the media and everybody else judging them by their looks and every little movement they made, just waiting on them to mess up, he just didn't know if he would want that kind of life for his daughter. After all of the years he had fought off the press and paparazzi, he knew how hard it was living in the spotlight. It was hard for boys, too, of course, in different ways than it was for girls, but it was still tough. Heck, it was hard for anybody who had a heart and cared about others to survive in the business. This was true for any buisness. He had learned this the hard way when he was a young, cocky, hotshot rookie just starting out. You had to have guts and grit in order to have a lasting, marketing brand name sponsors would be willing to support. To this day he truly believed this was the reason why he had acted so cocky and arrogant at the peak of his career. He had been trying to put up a strong front in order to keep the reputation he had of being such a fearless and daring racer in the face of so much fierce competition.

When he had been a racer, he had been up against vetrans like Strip "The King" Weathers, lifetime pros with years of experience behind them. Looking back on it, he thought he hadn't done too bad, considering everything he been through to get to where he was today. He had only suffered one severe wreck, and had somehow managed to survive, even earning Seven Piston cups. Not too many drivers racing today could say that!

He thought Sally herself would've preferred a baby girl, the way she had talked before they had found out the news, but he knew she would love their baby boy just as much as she would their baby girl if they had been having one. He could tell just by the pure love he saw in her eyes when she rubbed her belly. Unlike Lightning, she could've cared less about their child ever becoming a racer, and that was what would always make her a better than person than him. He had always thought so, anyway.

"What?" Sally asked, and couldn't help but smile back at him. Lightning's excitement was infectious.

Lightning laughed. "We can name him after Doc, in memory of him," he said, and peered into her face, pure love and adoration in his eyes. "I think he would like that, too, don't you?"

Sally nodded. "Yes," she said, feeling the smile on her face grow even wider, and kisssed him again, this time on the cheek, but it was no less romantic and heartfelt than the one she had given him on the mouth just moments ago. "I think he would."

Somehow, deep down, Lightning knew she was right.

The End


End file.
